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Mealey's Personal Injury

February 28, 2025
Iowa High Court: Psych Tests May Be Disclosed Only To Licensed Psychologists

DES MOINES, Iowa — A trial court erred in granting an insurance company’s motion to compel production of a plaintiff’s psychological test materials in a dispute over uninsured and underinsured motorist (UM) benefits, the Iowa Supreme Court ruled, finding that state law unambiguously holds that discovery of such materials may be made only from one licensed psychologist to another.
February 26, 2025
Sig Sauer Wants En Banc Rehearing On Experts Ruling In Pistol Design Defect Case

CINCINNATI — A Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruling that expert testimony on causation is not needed in a complex design defect case “misapprehended Kentucky law,” a gun manufacturer argues in a Feb. 25 petition for an en banc rehearing of a recent split decision that found that while a district court properly excluded expert testimony on causation, it erred in excluding design defect testimony and reversed an award of summary judgment.
February 26, 2025
Massachusetts Wrongful Death Judgment For Smoker’s Estate Reduced By $20 Million

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. — A Massachusetts state court entered an amended judgment of approximately $86.6 million against a tobacco company in favor of the estate of a smoker who died from lung cancer, after a state court justice agreed to amend the judgment to correct an “error” that led to a previously entered judgment worth more than $105 million comprising a jury verdict, an incorrectly large attorney fees award and a posttrial $20 million award for deceptive and unfair conduct that the justice trebled under state law.
February 25, 2025
Judge Rules That Genuine Issues Of Fact Exist In Ohio Train Derailment Case

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio — A federal judge in Ohio has issued four opinions in the lawsuit related to injuries allegedly caused by the derailment of a train operated by Norfolk Southern Corp. that exposed the village of East Palestine, Ohio, to numerous toxic chemicals. The judge ruled on four motions for summary judgment, finding that disputed issues of fact and damages remain in third-party litigation brought by Norfolk Southern against the railcar and chemical defendants.
February 25, 2025
Engineering Firm To Pay $53M To Settle Claims Related To Flint Water Crisis

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — An engineering firm that is a defendant in the litigation over the lead-contaminated water crisis in Flint, Mich., has moved in Michigan federal court for approval of a $53 million settlement with Bellwether III plaintiffs that would resolve all claims brought by minors or plaintiffs designated as “legally incompetent or incapacitated individuals.”
February 25, 2025
Show Cause Order Issued For Auto Accident Settlement Involving Inactive Insurer

POUGHKEEPSIE, N.Y. — A New York state justice issued a show cause order regarding a petition for court approval of a settlement for injuries sustained by a child of an insured in an auto accident, for which a $30,000 settlement offer was made by the insurer pursuant to an underinsurance claim.
February 25, 2025
Experts Featured In Mealey's Daubert Report

Entries are ordered in alphabetical order of the expert in each area of expert testimony. Experts appeared in the January and February 2025 issues of Mealey’s Daubert Report.
February 25, 2025
Exclusion Of Expert Was Too Harsh Of A Sanction, Tennessee Appeals Court Says

JACKSON, Tenn. — A Tennessee trial court failed to show that a woman’s violation of a discovery order “was contumacious, intentional, blatant, or otherwise so egregious as to justify the harshest sanction available, i.e., exclusion of [her] expert and dismissal of her lawsuit,” a state appeals court held, reversing the exclusion of the witness and award of summary judgment.
February 21, 2025
4th Circuit Finds Pro Se Plaintiff Was Wrongly Denied Post-Stay Discovery

RICHMOND, Va. — A trial court abused its discretion in denying a plaintiff’s request for discovery as untimely in a negligence suit against the United States, a Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel ruled, holding that even if a second request served after the lifting of a discovery stay was untimely, a pre-stay request was not.
February 21, 2025
Law Firms File 3 Identical Silicosis Cases Against Makers Of Quartz Countertops

LOS ANGELES — A group of law firms has filed three identical lawsuits in state court against the makers of artificial stone products on behalf of workers who claim that they have developed silicosis from cutting and fabricating the products in question. In one case, which is indicative of all of the actions, Roberto Cruz Rivera contends that the defendants fraudulently concealed the toxic hazards of the stone products and hid the fact that inhaling silica causes lung disease.
February 21, 2025
Experts Properly Admitted To Testify On Cause Of Man’s Death, Opine On Prevention

MIAMI — There was no error in a lower court allowing experts to testify for the estate of a man who died from carbon monoxide poisoning, a Florida appellate court ruled, affirming a verdict against the company that rented the man equipment that he used to strip hardwood floors in an enclosed space.
February 20, 2025
Judge Nixes Company’s Bid To Dismiss Case Alleging Hair Relaxers Caused Cancer

CHICAGO — A federal judge in Illinois on Feb. 19 denied a motion to dismiss a lawsuit against John Paul Mitchell Systems (JPMS), which is one of many defendants in litigation brought by individuals who allege wrongful death and other injuries from endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) in hair relaxer products, ruling that JPMS’s argument in favor of dismissal “ignores Plaintiffs’ allegations that EDCs are present in hair relaxer products under the guise of ‘fragrance’ and ‘perfumes,’ but [U.S. Food and Drug Administration] regulations do not require listing individual fragrance ingredients on labels.”
February 18, 2025
Survivors Appeal Qualified Immunity Ruling In COVID-19 Nursing Home Deaths Case

CAMDEN, N.J. — The survivors of former nursing home residents who died from COVID-19 filed a notice of appeal to the Third Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals seeking review of a decision by a New Jersey federal court that New Jersey’s governor and public health commissioner are entitled to qualified immunity in their handling of the COVID-19 pandemic with respect to nursing homes and granting the officials’ motion to dismiss.
February 18, 2025
Judge Partially Excludes Experts In Injury Case But Allows Case To Move Forward

CHARLESTON, S.C. — A federal judge in South Carolina partially granted a motion to exclude experts in a lawsuit alleging an injury at a Target store but denied the company’s motion for summary judgment.
February 13, 2025
Tepezza MDL Judge Selects First 4 Bellwether Plaintiffs To Head To Trial

CHICAGO — The Illinois federal judge overseeing the Tepezza hearing loss multidistrict litigation has named the first four cases that will proceed as the initial bellwether cases and instructed the parties to confer to decide on the order in which the cases will be tried.
February 12, 2025
Magistrate Judge Finds Alternative Design Ideas Speculative, Bars Testimony

DALLAS — Experts retained to opine on a safer alternative design to a forklift involved in a workplace accident cannot testify, a Texas federal magistrate judge held, because the “proposed alternatives amount to speculative concepts, which is insufficient to rise to the level of an admissible expert opinion.”
February 11, 2025
Recommendations Made On Experts’ Admissibility In Maritime Accident Case

MIAMI — A federal magistrate judge in Florida recommended that a cruise ship operator’s motion to exclude expert witnesses be granted in part and that a motion to exclude the company’s medical expert be denied and a motion to exclude a rebuttal witness be granted, but he noted that some of the more persuasive arguments for exclusion were not raised by the parties.
February 10, 2025
Cases Alleging Depo-Provera Caused Tumors Centralized In Fla.’s Northern District

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation on Feb. 8 agreed to centralize cases alleging that a long-lasting injectable contraceptive caused women to develop intracranial meningiomas, a type of brain tumor, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida.
February 10, 2025
Justice Partly Amends Judgment For Smoker’s Death, Denies Claim Of Extreme ‘Bias’

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. — A Massachusetts state court justice on Feb. 7 agreed that a previously entered judgment worth more than $105 million in favor of the widower of a dead smoker should be amended to reduce the attorney fees award and recalculate the trebled damages award but otherwise maintained the judgment, which the tobacco company had in part claimed was evidence of “extreme bias.”
February 07, 2025
Amicus: High Court Review Needed In Camp Lejeune Case Over Right To Jury Trial

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A bar association focused on the civil justice system has filed an amicus curiae brief in the U.S. Supreme Court arguing that it should grant a petition filed by plaintiffs who are challenging a lower court’s decision that they are not entitled to a jury trial in their case against the U.S. government related to water contamination at Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune in North Carolina and seeking reversal of an appellate court’s subsequent refusal to entertain their appeal. The bar association argues that the denial of the plaintiffs’ right to a jury trial warrants review.
February 07, 2025
Survivors Of University Student Who Died In COVID-19 Isolation Renew Contract Claims

NEWARK, N.J. — The estate and parents of a college sophomore who died from an epileptic seizure while in COVID-19 isolation during the school year filed an amended complaint against a university on Feb. 6 alleging breach of contract and of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing after a New Jersey federal court dismissed wrongful death and negligence claims based on the statute of limitations and a fraudulent concealment claim and their original contract claims as deficiently pleaded.
February 07, 2025
Smoker’s Malpractice Settlement Precludes Widow’s Wrongful Death Suit, Panel Says

MIAMI — A Fourth District Florida Court of Appeal panel on Feb. 6 affirmed a trial court’s entry of summary judgment for a cigarette company on Engle claims brought against it by a widow for causing her husband’s lung cancer and death, which the trial court deemed precluded by the husband’s previous settlement of medical malpractice claims against his cancer doctor.
February 06, 2025
Smoker’s Daughter Waived Elder Juror Exclusion Challenge, Panel Says

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — The First District Florida Court of Appeal on Feb. 5 affirmed a defense verdict rejecting a wrongful death suit brought by a deceased smoker’s daughter against two tobacco companies, writing that she failed to timely raise or preserve her objection to the fact that the trial court did not summon any potential jurors over the age of 70.
February 06, 2025
Helicopter Engine Maker Not Liable For Fatal Crash Involving Repaired Carburetor

MT. HOLLY, N.J. — Concluding that a helicopter engine manufacturer had not been involved in the repair of a carburetor during which allegedly defective parts were installed, a New Jersey judge granted the manufacturer’s motion for summary judgment in a lawsuit brought by the survivor of a helicopter crash victim who alleged that the helicopter’s carburetor caused a malfunction that resulted in the crash.
February 06, 2025
‘Racial Targeting’ Argument Tainted $34 Million Verdict, Tobacco Company Says

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — A tobacco company argues in an appellant brief filed in a Florida appellate court that a jury’s $34 million verdict against it for the death of a 38-year-old smoker with cancer that allegedly caused a brain hemorrhage should be reversed in part because the smoker’s estate made improper, inflammatory arguments that the company “‘targeted’ black males” with its marketing.